Posts Tagged ‘will wright’
Will Wright’s latest studio working on 3 unannounced projects
In early April we let you know that Will Wright, the guy behind The Sims, Spore and co-founder of Maxis, would be departing the studio he helped build to focus on his newest studio Stupid Fun Club. At the time we had no idea exactly what the studio would work on first and not much has changed since. Although today we now at least know that Stupid Fun Club is working on something.
Mr. Wright himself recently sat down with VentureBeat to let us know that Stupid Fun Club is working on three separate projects which could come to life in “six months to a year”. He elaborated by saying that these projects range from the internet to toys but didn’t say much further.
So, within the next 6-12 months we should be seeing more of Stupid Fun Club.
Spore Hero Arena debut trailer
Spore patch 5 now live, asymmetry available
The new Spore patch is now live, and comes with a number of changes, including asymmetry being implemented into the game. If you already have Spore, you just need to launch the game and the software should patch.
Don’t forget that you need the EA Download Manager to make the patch possible, though. Here’s the full changelog:
Spore Improvements:
- Asymmetry is now available for creatures! Details on new Asymmetry features for Creatures and Vehicles can be found here.
- This patch fixes several crashes in Space Game.
- Many tuning improvements to Space Game, including reduced disaster rates at all levels of difficulty, adjustments to Hard Mode, increased limits on concurrent trade routes, as well as changes to tool unlocks for the Knights.
- Creator Lineage appears correctly for all creation types shared after this patch is installed.
- Cheat is included that permits Creators to export creatures in Collada format for use in Maya. Creators must acknowledge and accept a Tools EULA to perform this operation. An additional cheat has been provided to enable highest quality textures to appear on vehicles, where it is supported by user hardware.
- Fixed a problem where creations would go missing if a user quits the game in any way while downloads are in progress.
- Fixed a bug where achievements were disappearing.
- Fixed a bug where some Sporepedia cards had corrupted backgrounds.
- Fixed a problem in Space where some Grox planets were unreachable.
- YouTube movies now publish as public
Galatic Adventure Improvements:
- This patch must be installed again after installing Galactic Adventures, even if you have installed this patch previously.
- You can now place the avatar, NPCs, and handheld objects on top of air, land, and sea vehicles in the Adventure Creator. Get more info here.
- Improvements are made to the Adventure Creator, including right-click camera behavior, and User Interface enhancements.
- In EP1 open gates were not working correctly when they were disguised
- Some customer-reported crashes in Galactic Adventures have been fixed.
Read (Spore)
More than 100 million Spore creations created
EA has recently announced that there have been over 100 million created using the Spore Creature Creator to date which includes creatures, buildings, and vehicles.
Also included in the press release was the announcement that the 100 millionth creator will receive a NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT video card, Spore and the Galactic Adventures expansion pack.
Upon reading this announcement I took the time to flip through EA’s Sporepedia and picked out some creations that caught my eye, included above.
Spore Galactic Adventures will hit store shelves on June 23rd for both PC and Mac.
Mr. T and Will Wright Fight the Nazis, Blow Minds
Starting the week with such craziness wasn’t exactly on my mind, and hey I’m not making this up: ZootFly has announced a game based on the Mr. T graphic novel series for a series of games based upon the famous A-Team character.
I shit you not: the first game will see Mr. T take on Nazis and their machines in various locations, including South American rain forests, ancient cities, industrial complexes and more. He is aided by none other than Sims creator Will Wright, who is an American geneticist in the game. They will join forces to “annihilate the Nazis and their hardware.”
The studio promises “over-the-top adrenaline-pumping action of Mr. T” coupled with platforming, brawling and puzzle-solving. It is unclear what Wright’s involvement in the game is. He recently left EA for Big Stupid Fun.
Mr. T vs The Nazis is in development for PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. No release date was given for this bundle of awesomeness.
Will Wright departing EA
EA has recently released a statement detailing the departure of video game developer legend, Will Wright after a near 12 year gig at the company. Wright fans need not be discouraged as he will go on to form a new studio called Stupid Fun Club which hopes to put out new games, toys, and even movies.
EA has bought a stake of the company giving both they and Wright the title of main shareholders.
If you don’t know who Will Wright is, he created a little thing called The Sims which went on to become the best selling PC game series of all time netting over 100 million units sold.
Read (Yahoo! Tech)
Wright Talks Spore DRM
The ugly controversy over Spore’s DRM has had people talking, and Will Wright, the game’s creator, is finally one of them. Kotaku asked what he thought about the whole situation:
It was something I probably should have tuned into more. It was a corporate decision to go with DRM on Spore. They had a plan and the parameters, but now we’re allowing more authentications and working with players to de-authenticate which makes it more in line like an iTunes. I think one of the most valid concerns about it was you could only install it so many times. For most players it’s not an issue, it’s a pretty small percentage, but some people do like wiping their hard disk and installing it 20 times or they want to play it 10 years later.
A sensible man, I might add. Anyways, when asked where to go from here, Wright commented that the whole dynamic of game commerce will eventually shift online. He cited Battlefield Heroes as an example, noting how they will need to monetize in Asian markets, among other things.
Analyst: Spore Will Sell 2 Million
EA is positioning Spore to be a big-seller this year, but just how successful will the game be? Colin Sebastian, analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, is the first to try to give it a number: 2 million.
Sebastian’s guess is in tune with EA’s own expectations that the game will be a blockbuster. However, EA is more concerned with making Spore stand as a platform that can be monetized even further, ala The Sims.
Spore will ship September 7 on PC and Mac, alongside a stripped-down version on the DS.
Sims Creator: E3 is a Zombie
Famed designer Will Wright has dubbed the E3 show “the walking dead.”
The man responsible for The Sims and the upcoming Spore game added to an increasingly negative sentiment in the games industry claiming the E3 convention has outlived its usefulness by evolving into the low-key event from the big, brash show it was previously.
“I think they [the organizers of E3] were looking for a way to sign the arms treaty and de-escalate the whole thing,” he remarked. “I understand why they really pulled the plug on the big E3. Looking at the amount of money a company like EA would spend on it, it was ridiculous amounts of money just to be present and competitive with everyone else.”
The industry is looking to other shows to fill the void, including the Leipzig Games Convention and the Penny Arcade Expo, where many publishers will be present this year.
Will Wright Impressed by "Sporn"
The tubes of the Internets this summer was filled with horrifying and disgustingly explicit pictures and videos of monsters created with the free Spore creature creator. Though these creatures, often referred to as “sporn”, have been removed from the official Sporepedia, the game’s creator Will Wright can’t help but be impressed with what some were able to accomplish.
“Some of it’s really good for what they were shooting for,” he said. “It’s amazingly explicit, especially when those creations are animated. We just have to make sure those people aren’t messing up the experience for others.”
Wright also talked about the console versions of the life simulator, noting that any platform release of the game would be designed to take advantage of the specific system.
Spore is due out on PC and Mac, as well as a scaled-down DS version, on September 7.
EA Hoping to Turn Spore into TV Show, Movie
Series creator Will Wright has revealed that EA wants to turn upcoming life simulator Spore into a feature film and a television show.
“With Spore, we’re looking way outside the game space, such as TV, movies, etc,” he said in an interview to Reuters. “We’re basically planting the seeds to spread Spore out to a much wider group of people than would ever play a computer game.”
Spore is due out on PC and Mac September 7, with a scaled down DS version also due out the same day. The game has players creating and managing a lifeform from its cellular phase to galactic domination.
EA is currently working to get its properties onto both the small screen and the silver screen, with a live-action Sims movie reportedly in the works.